You will have to forgive me, but I have a difficult time taking the war against Moslem extremists seriously. No, I haven't become the latest in a line of anti-American quislings who say the war is "all about oil" or that Islamism is not a threat. It's just that I have trouble mustering enthusiasm for overseas ventures when we allow the enemy's fifth column to operate virtually unopposed on our shores.

I'm talking about the odious Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), a group that could be the legal arm of al-Qaeda. Although CAIR's machinations usually go unmentioned by the mainstream media, for quite some time now it has been training its sights on anyone who would tackle the Islamic threat with manly strength. It has carried out campaigns against National Review magazine, radio personality Paul Harvey, the producers of the television program 24, and many others who dare say the sultan has no clothes. And now it is targeting award-winning radio talk show host Michael Savage.

CAIR has been pressuring Savage's advertisers to pull their spots from his show, and I'm dismayed to learn that some businesses have capitulated to their demands. Among these cowardly companies are AutoZone, TrustedID, OfficeMax, Citrix Systems Inc., and JCPenny. I will have them know that as long as they dance with the Devil and boycott Savage's show, I will boycott them and encourage others to follow suit. And I have a very long memory.

It's not surprising that business would kneel at the altar of political correctness, as it worships mammon. And, in truth, many people – the good, the bad and the ugly – use their economic clout to try to effect social change; why, some on my side in the culture war are boycotting Ford because it supports the homosexual lobby. But I really have to wonder if these companies know to whom they're kowtowing. Let's take a closer look at CAIR.

If you think that only those on the right take issue with CAIR, think again. In point of fact, the organization is so obviously in the pocket of terrorists that even some of our most left-wing politicians have condemned them. Just consider the following quotations, the first three of which are by liberal Democrats:

"[CAIR is] unusual in its extreme rhetoric and its associations with groups that are suspect." – Senator Richard Durbin

"To praise [CAIR] because they haven't been indicted is like somebody saying, ‘I'm not a crook.'" – Senator Barbara Boxer

"Time and again [CAIR] has shown itself to be nothing more than an apologist for groups bent on the destruction of Israel and Islamic domination over the West." – Congressman Bill Shuster

What would inspire Boxer, Schumer and Durbin – who many characterize as soft on Islamism themselves (some on the right call Durbin "Turban Durbin") – to condemn CAIR so unabashedly? Well, just read what some officers of CAIR and their associates have said.

Omar Ahmad, the co-founder of CAIR, has made no bones about his desire for Islamic hegemony. He once stated,

"Islam isn't in America to be equal to any other faith but to become dominant. The Koran, the Muslim book of scripture, should be the highest authority in America, and Islam the only
accepted religion on Earth."

Then, Ahmad attended a secret meeting at a Philadelphia hotel where Moslem leaders allegedly plotted to disguise money given to the terrorist group Hamas as charitable donations (these proceedings were surreptitiously recorded by the FBI as part an investigation). One of the other attendees, Shukri Abu-Baker, who was recently tried in a federal terror-funding case, said,

"Omar Ahmad was captured on FBI surveillance tapes at Hamas meetings in the United States
during 1993 explaining that the IAP [Islamic Association for Palestine] could not, for political reasons, admit its support for Hamas, and then discussing how the Hamas agenda could be cloaked and advanced."

Another CAIR official, Executive Director Nihad Awad, has been more forthcoming. He once said plainly,

"I am in support of the Hamas movement."

And the above is just a sampling of the damning truth about these jihadists who masquerade as civil rights activists.

To truly grasp the insidiousness of these closet jihadists, one must understand taquiya, a principle that gives Islamists the moral authority to deceive infidels. Taquiya refers to dissimulation, the process of disguising one's true intentions by erecting a facade pleasing to his victims. Writing at Jihad Watch, Gregory M. Davis explains it like this:

In times when the greater strength of dar al-harb [the House of War – places dominated by infidels] necessitates that the jihad take an indirect approach, the natural attitude of a Muslim to the infidel world must be one of deception and omission. Revealing frankly the ultimate goal of dar al-Islam to conquer and plunder dar al-harb when the latter holds the military trump cards would be strategic idiocy.

Unfortunately, the ones guilty of idiocy here are Westerners, as we blithely ignore how these Islamic interlopers are using our own system to destroy us. CAIR and its fellow travelers have been using intimidation and the courts to silence infidels, great and small, who oppose the jihad. For instance, CAIR sued the organization I cited earlier, Anti-CAIR, for $1.35 million for "libelous defamation." This is, I suppose, what they call it when you tell the truth about them.

Then there is the case of former terrorist and current critic of Moslem extremism Zachariah Anani. For his sin of exercising his free speech rights, CAIR and other Islamic groups actually pressured the Canadian government to arrest him under the nation's hate speech laws and deport him.

It should be noted, however, that CAIR's definition of hate speech may be a little different from yours, as in 1998 it co-hosted an event at Brooklyn College during which radical Moslems characterized Jews as "pigs and monkeys" (this is also applied to Christians). I haven't yet heard CAIR condemn those speakers, though. But why would they? That idea is found in the Koran itself and is a common teaching in the Islamic world.

Then, do you remember the case of the six flying imams who were detained before boarding US Airways Flight 300? CAIR even went so far as to sue the passengers who reported their suspicious behavior. The lawsuit has since been dropped, but it illustrates well the lengths to which CAIR will go to intimidate Americans into silence.

And don't think it doesn't work. The Moslem fifth column in our midst is dropping an iron burqa over commentary that accurately frames the Islamic threat. Even if our media didn't don their politically correct corsets, the fear of career destruction, legal action and physical harm would be more than enough to still even fairly tenacious tongues. (As for the last danger, I recently wrote about artists who will not address Islam through their work because they fear for their lives.) And while there is no evidence that CAIR perpetrates violent action, it visits legal and financial beheadings on its victims that terrify all but the most intrepid souls.

This brings us back to Michael Savage. There is no one else of his stature who so bravely exposes the Islamist threat. If CAIR destroys him, they will have felled the World Trade Center of critics. Who, then, would be willing to contend with the sword of Islam? Only the small fish would be left to swim against the current from Mecca, and they would be next as CAIR and its minions worked their way down the food chain.

You don't have to find yourself on Savage's side of the aisle to find yourself in his corner. All good Americans should be outraged that these fifth-column warriors, these barbarians inside the gate, these vile interlopers, are targeting our countrymen for destruction. If you want free and open debate about one of the most important issues of our time, Islamic Jihad, you should care about CAIR. It is a terrorist-enabling organization that has no place in "dar al-harb."

So it shouldn't be hard to figure out who to support in this battle between taquiya and talk radio, not even for us pigs and monkeys.